For a couple of hundred dollars, you can buy the world’s most powerful handheld laser. “It’s stunning to behold, magnificent to wield and absolutely wicked to own,” according to its online advertisement.
What would you do with such a tool?
According to the manufacturer’s website, you’d wonder “how can you use this power in the most awe-inspiring way imaginable?”
Something like power and...

Has the world ever looked more beautiful? Probably, in some pristine past, but in the eye of this beholder, these late days of spring sparkle with perfection — and when the sun doesn’t come out they give us moody skies reflected in shady green.
Who doesn’t want to be out in times like this?
Somebody who does is the Eastern box turtle. That beloved little fellow with the high domed shell crawls out of the leafy cover of the forest floor...

While not a beautiful swimmer, the channel catfish provides the sweetest flesh a seafood fanatic can hope for

Pulling on my weather gear, I headed out in the morning gloom to hook up the skiff. The forecast was poor, but I had cabin fever and had to get out on the water.
The white perch were up the trib shallows, I felt sure, and there is no better cure for poor weather than the promise of a good perch fry that evening. Now all I needed was the fish.
Taking my lightest rods and an ample supply of Rooster Tails and Captain Bert’s spinner baits, I splashed my...

Since I became involved in composting biosolids in the early 1970s, technology for processing wastewater has undergone major changes. Back then, most wastewater treatment facilities had only primary or secondary treatment technology. At the same time, industries were dumping all kinds of waste into sewer systems.
The Clean Water Act promoted by president Lyndon Johnson led to major changes that now enable us to convert solid waste into usable products while returning more...

Mary (Debra Winger: The Ranch) and Michael (Tracy Letts: Divorce) are roommates who happen to be married. They barely speak, never eat together and sleep at far corners of the bed. Both seem utterly inconvenienced when they must occupy the same room.
They have one thing in common: Both are having affairs. Temperamental ballet instructor Lucy (Melora Walters: Beneath the Leaves) throws fits and demands Michael leave his wife. Washed-up writer Robert (Aidan Gillen: Game of...

Surely you remember Whoopi Goldberg in the hit film Sister Act? How outsized she was as nightclub chanteuse Deloris Van Cartier, how woefully entangled with her married mobster boyfriend, how terrified when she saw him shoot a man in cold blood and how hilarious she was masquerading as a nun? Hold that thought …
Forget the music. Substitute an original soundtrack of soul and R&B tunes for the film’s repurposed...

Amid the horrors of World War I, battlefield nurses were angels of mercy. America’s battered and beleaguered doughboys knew that for certain, and you will, too, after listening to Maryland storyteller Ellouise Schoettler recount Ready to Serve: Unknown Stories of 64 World War I Nurses from Maryland.
The town of Chesapeake Beach takes Memorial Day seriously, with this year’s Stars & Stripes Festival commemorating the centennial of The War to End All Wars, the...

What are these blue stars? Whizzing along Rt. 3, we see them here and there along the roadside. Just off Rt. 3, there’s another in the front garden of the Crofton Library. This blue star is mounted on a bronze plaque in a large stone. Stop a moment in the library safe space, and you read that it is a Blue Star Memorial By-Way marker paying tribute to the Armed Forces of America.
The Crofton Village Garden Club laid this heavy stone and keeps the garden lovely. “...

Memorial Day is both a holiday and a holy day.
On the far side of war, it’s the holiday beginning summer’s season of outdoor living, welcomed with barbecues, crab feasts and pool openings. I’m eager to plunge into that season this week or next, weather permitting. Imagining you are too, all of us here are preparing Bay Weekly’s indispensible Summer Guide to tuck inside your June 8 paper.
On the near side of war, Memorial Day is a...

Once a year, Hammond Harwood House opens the gates to the ­capital city’s private gardens — and invites you to look inside

They are there, hiding behind impossibly small doors tucked into the crowded summer streets of Annapolis. Or perhaps they appear as unexpected splashes of color coyly winking at strollers past a secluded courtyard.
On the Secret Gardens of Annapolis Tour June 3 and 4, you can peek behind the doorways and wander deeply into hidden courtyards to discover the treasures of which their gardeners have spent the long winter months dreaming. Will you be able to spot the Japanese...